


Insert Dad Joke Here

by oui_oui_mon_ami



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, IronDad and SpiderSon, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump, captain handsome's holiday gift exchange 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 10:24:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17119580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oui_oui_mon_ami/pseuds/oui_oui_mon_ami
Summary: Written for Captain Handsome's Holiday Gift Exchange 2018It’s happened to everyone. It usually occurs early on, in kindergarten, when you’re too young to think before you speak, and your classmates make fun of you for half an hour before nap time. It’s very different when you’re sixteen and you’re sleepy and you really, really admire the person in question. When that happens, it’s a serious screw-up.---Tony Stark is terrified of becoming a father. He never used to think about it much when he was younger, but now? What if he ended up screwing up just like Howard or Obie, and the poor kid turned out just as messed up inside as he is? No, Tony would never make a good father, so he’s determined not to get attached to the Spider-kid. Nothing good would ever come of that.Peter Parker can’t remember his dad. The only father figure in his life that he can recall was Uncle Ben, and he… Peter doesn’t want that happening to any other important people in his life. Especially not Mr Stark. Which is why he’s keeping the dynamic between them strictly professional. Until the time he’s spent hours in the lab and, about to pass out from exhaustion, lets slip that one word that changes everything.





	Insert Dad Joke Here

“Hey, could you hold this here for me, kiddo?”

“Hm? Oh, sure Mr. Stark, yeah.”

Tony watches Peter walk over from his workbench (not _his_ workbench, Tony didn’t give it to him, not really, he just conveniently left it clear of his things the first time he invited Peter over to work on some new tech with him, and the kid uses the same spot every time he comes to the lab like there’s this invisible seating chart or something) and frowns at the way he’s dragging his feet, just a little. He quickly checks his watch and mentally kicks himself: they’ve been working for six hours straight with no breaks, which, while fine for him, is certainly not fine for a growing boy with an abnormally fast metabolism like Peter. He stands up. “You know what, how about we take a break? I’ll go make us some sandwiches and then we can carry on with this.”

Peter’s eyes widen. “Oh, no, I’m fine, thanks,” he says, “actually, I think I just hit a breakthrough with that bug in my suit coding? Yeah, I’m on a roll, I don’t need food.”

“Kid, you’re rambling. Which is something you do a lot when you’re tired.”

“I’m not tired!” Peter argues before, as if on cue, he yawns.

Tony chuckles fondly (wait, _fondly_? When did he start doing anything that could be described as _fond_? “I’m making sandwiches,” he says, “stay here.”

Peter sighs. “Okay.”

Tony speedwalks to the kitchen and checks in the cupboards for bread, butter, and a decent filling.

“Friday, add bread to the shopping list.”

_“Got it, sir.”_

“… Friday, add butter to the shopping list.”

_“Roger that, sir.”_

A pause. “Friday, who finished the peanut butter?”

_“You did, sir. At three twenty-six on Thursday morning.”_

I really need to buy groceries, Tony thinks. “Okay, is there anything in here that I can make a decent snack out of?”

_“Might I suggest the bagels in the bread bin and the cream cheese in the fridge?”_

“We have bagels?” Tony frowns. “We have a _bread bin_?”

_“Yes, both of which were bought by Ms Potts.”_

“Ah, I knew I proposed to that woman for a reason.” Tony quickly fixes two bagels and returns to the workshop – where he finds Peter fast asleep, cheek pressed into the workbench. “Huh. It really is late, isn’t it?” Tony says, more to himself than to anyone else.

Friday replies anyway. “ _Yes, sir. May I remind you that Aunt May was expecting Peter back home at ten o’clock PM?”_

Tony curses under his breath and checks his watch. “You could have reminded me three hours ago!” he hisses. He shakes Peter awake. “Hey, Pete. I think it’s time to get you home.”

Peter blinks drowsily and shakes his head. “No, I can stay a bit longer. I’ve just found a temporary solution to the coding bug, and if the bug comes back the way I think it will, I think I know how to rewrite that line of coding to get rid of it altogether.”

“Good work, kid,” Tony says. If Peter can think of ideas like these when half-asleep, no wonder he’s an honours student on the track to MIT. Tony’s proud.

Wait, _proud_? Why should he feel pride? It’s not like he had anything to do with Peter’s smarts. He’s merely helping Peter by challenging him. If anything, it’s Aunt May who should be proud. Maybe he’s just feeling proud on her behalf.

Yeah, that sounds credible.

“We need to get you home,” he adds. “Aunt May’s going to ground me or something.”

Peter giggles, knowing that Tony’s a little afraid of his aunt (and maybe a little turned on by her), but too stubborn to admit it. Tony calls Happy and asks him to drive Peter home (a request that doesn’t make Happy anywhere near his namesake – “ _You promoted me to head of security, and for what? For me to run errands for you again? To drive your kid places?_ ” he hisses through the phone; Tony just rolls his eyes because he knows Happy’s more attached to the kid than he is (not that _he’s_ attached to Peter, not at all).). Peter’s smiling dopily to himself when Tony turns back to him, and it betrays just how young he is. Too young. He almost reminds Tony of himself at that age, but more hopeful and not as alcoholic, thank God.

“Happy will be in the foyer in about ten minutes. Can you find your way upstairs okay?” Tony asks Peter.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, sure, don’t worry.” Peter starts to pack up his things, shoving the rest of the bagel into his mouth.

“And come by at the weekend if you’re free, we can work on that coding issue together.”

“Sure thing.”

“And stay safe on those patrols. Or don’t. I don’t care.”

Peter huffs a laugh and yawns. “Okay. Thanks again.” He opens the door just as Tony picks up a welding torch. “Night, Dad.”

They both freeze. The welding torch drops onto the workbench with a clatter. Tony waits until the door slams shut before daring to turn around. Peter is gone.

“Friday?” he croaks out.

_“Yes, sir?”_

“Did I just hallucinate that? Am I really that sleep-deprived?”

_“No, Mr Parker really did call you ‘Dad’. But your awareness and reaction levels are decreasing. It would not be advisable to start using a welding torch until you have had at least eight hours of sleep.”_

Tony blinks. “Shit,” he says to the empty room. Then he decides to go to bed.

\---

Peter closes the door quickly and rests his head on it. “Friday, did that really just happen?”

_“Yes, Mr Parker.”_

He groans softly. “If you’ve recorded that, can you do me a favour and delete it?”

_“My apologies. You do not have the authority to delete or alter security audio and video files.”_

“Fine, I’ll just go and throw myself off a cliff then.”

_“That is not recommended.”_

Peter groans again. Damn AIs that can’t grasp nihilistic humour.

_“Happy is waiting for you in the foyer.”_

“Right, right.”

Peter walks up the stairs and hopes that this is just some awful, incredibly realistic nightmare.

\---

“You called Tony Stark _Dad_?”

“Shut up, Ned.” Peter hisses, glancing around at the few heads that popped up to stare at the pair of them. Sadly, Peter had woken up this morning with a clear memory of the Unfortunate Incident and a strong feeling of embarrassment.

“Woah, you two must be close,” Ned says in awe.

“No! No, he’s just my mentor,” Peter replies defensively. “Y’know how sometimes people call their teacher _mom_ or _dad_?”

“Yeah, when they’re six.”

“Hey! It was late, I was tired, it just slipped out.” Peter sighs. “Although I already feel like shit about the whole thing, so you giving me crap about it probably won’t do any more harm. I’m probably going to throw myself out of a window anyway.”

“Hey, at least it shows that you two are close. I mean, it’s Tony Stark – that’s pretty cool.”

Peter groans. “Except it’s not.”

Ned frowns. “Why not?”

“Because…” Peter glances around the room again. Most of his classmates have returned to their work, but he’s almost certain that MJ is listening to their conversation from behind her Tolstoy book. “Okay, this probably isn’t going to make much sense,” he says, lowering his voice, “but you know how I don’t remember my father, right? Because he died when I was really young?”

Ned nods.

“And then there was Uncle Ben, who was basically like a dad to me, before… y’know.”

Ned nods again.

“You see what I’m getting at?”

Ned shakes his head.

Peter groans. “It’s like I lose everyone I love, everyone who could be like a father figure for me. I dunno, I feel like I’m putting Mr Stark in danger if I get too close to him. Is that crazy?”

“Yes,” MJ says, glaring at the two of them over her book. “Yes, it is crazy. Tony Stark isn’t going to die just because you called him Daddy.”

“I didn’t call him Daddy!” Peter exclaims a little too loudly. More students look up, and some shush him.

“Look, if you’re so concerned about getting too close to Mr Stark, maybe you should distance yourself from him for a while,” Ned suggests. “When are you next meeting him?”

“Tonight, after school.”

“Don’t go. Say that you’re busy doing homework.”

“He’ll offer to help,” Peter protests.

“Spanish homework.”

“We’re both fluent in Spanish.”

“Politics homework.”

“I don’t even study politics.”

“Okay, history homework? About the Vikings?”

“He’d set me up with Thor.”

“Oh, cool! Can I come?”

“To do my imaginary homework with me? Sure.”

Ned sticks his tongue out at him. “What about Renaissance-era France? I can guarantee he’ll know nothing about that.”

Peter pulls a face. “Neither do I. And he’s a polymath, he has to know at least something about it. Look, I’ll just say that I have to help Aunt May with some chores or something.”

Ned shrugs. “Okay. But my lie was more convincing,” he mutters under his breath. Peter holds his phone under his desk so that the teacher doesn’t see him and types out a message to Mr Stark.

“Are you texting your daddy?” MJ asks, not looking up from her book.

“Shut _up_!”

\---

“What do I do? What does this mean?” Tony has his head in his hands, but he can hear Rhodey chuckling.

“I think you’re overthinking this,” Pepper says calmly. “You said it yourself, Peter was half-asleep at the time. But even if it does mean something, it shows how much Peter looks up to you. You should be flattered.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I know the kid looks up to me. But nothing good can come from this. There’s a reason I don’t have kids.”

“Which is?” Pepper is giving Tony her Look – head tilted and eyebrows raised to give a very clear message of _I call bullshit_.

“Which is… look, remember Howard? He didn’t exactly set the best example.” Tony grimaces. He remembers how Howard made him feel: like a disappointment, like a failure, like he wasn’t good enough. If he ever went to a therapist – and no, that one stint with Bruce didn’t count because the doctor was asleep for most of it – he suspects they would very easily be able to identify Howard as the source of most of his many issues. “I don’t want anyone else to feel like I did because of me.”

“You’re not Howard, Tony,” Pepper reassures him. “You’re kind, responsible, selfless, and you don’t just care about your company or assets.”

“Plus you’re twice as sexy as him,” Rhodey adds.

“You’d make an excellent father one day. And an excellent mentor for Peter.”

Tony smiles gratefully at her, although he still feels sick. There is one other reason that Tony’s afraid of having kids: naturally, being an ex-arms dealer turned superhero, there is a price on his head. People that Tony is attached to, particularly young, vulnerable people, are in danger. He doesn’t want anything happening to Peter because of who Tony is.

He feels his phone vibrate and frowns at the new message. Rhodey peeks over his shoulder. “Speak of the devil,” he says.

Tony groans. “I freaked him out. That’s why he’s cancelled on me. Oh god.”

Pepper rests a hand on his thigh as she skims the text. “I’m sure that’s not true. Aunt May probably wants him to stay home tonight because he was so late last night.”

“Look, he’s a hormonal teenager, probably obsessed with girls or boys or Fortnite or whatever the kids are into these days,” Rhodey says with a shrug. “Give it a couple days, he’s not going to remember anything about last night.”

Tony hopes that’s true.

\---

Peter returns to the workshop the day after, hoping to fix that bug in his suit once and for all. Mr Stark isn’t there when he arrives, but he is greeted by Pepper who lets him into the workshop with a knowing smile that definitely means that she knows about the Incident.

Mr Stark enters a little while later, carrying a few tools and fiddling on his phone so he doesn’t notice Peter straight away. “Hey, Mr Stark!” Peter calls from his worktable.

Mr Stark jumps, dropping his tools with a clatter. “Holy shit, kid, you scared the crap out of me!”

“Sorry,” Peter giggles.

Mr Stark picks up the tools and deposits them on a table before he starts tapping a holographic screen. “What’re you working on?”

It’s clear that Mr Stark doesn’t want to talk about the Incident any more than Peter does, and he’s fine with that. “I’m just rewriting the code on the suit to get rid of that bug. It’ll take time, but if it means I can shoot as many webs as I want, it’ll be worth it.”

“Good work,” Mr Stark says before they fall into silence. The workshop is unusually quiet – normally at least one of them is tinkering with something that makes a lot of noise but now they’re both tapping silently on their respective screens – and it only serves to magnify the awkward energy in the room. Peter screwed up the other night and it’s made things weird between them and now Mr Stark isn’t teasing him like he usually does and-

“What are you doing?” Peter blurts out, a little too loud and high-pitched for his liking.

Mr Stark looks over at him. “Uh… I’m trying to do a digital rendering of the new armour I’m developing.”

“The one with the nanotech?”

“That’s the one. It’s essentially going to be a mini AI so it can tell itself what needs replacing and what doesn’t work, but it helps to have a visual starting point. Like a set of instructions.”

“Cool.” A beat of silence. “How long is that going to take?”

“Why, do you want some help with your coding?”

“Oh, no, no, I was just wondering.”

Mr Stark shrugs. “Probably about an hour. Then I need to program it.”

“Okay.”

Silence falls again. Peter can’t bear it. He tries to focus on his work but Mr Stark’s silent presence on the other side of the room makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. And it’s all his fault that he feels this way.

“Hey, I gotta head home. It’s Aunt May’s birthday and I want to surprise her with dinner when she gets off work.”

Mr Stark looks up, frowning in confusion. Peter can’t help but feel like the genius knows he’s lying, but there’s no way Mr Stark knows when Aunt May’s birthday is. “Uh, sure, you want me to send Happy with a car? Hey, how about you take her to a good restaurant? It’s on me.”

“That’s very generous of you, Mr Stark,” Peter replies, “But I’d much rather make her dinner myself. It’s the thought that counts, right?”

“Okay…” Mr Stark is still frowning. “I’ll call Happy. Friday, remind me to get a bracelet for May.” He winks at Peter. “Bookmark the Tiffany website.”

“ _Affirmative, sir.”_

Peter swallows. “Well, bye,” he mutters. He’s just about to open the door when Friday addresses Mr Stark again.

_“Sir, there is an incident on Wall Street you might want to have a look at. A group of Russian mobsters have taken hostages in the Bank of America. The police can’t go in, but you might be able to.”_

A clip of news footage appears on a holographic screen, and Peter crosses the room to look at it with Mr Stark. One of the hostages is livestreaming audio through Snapchat. Peter hears a lot of shouting in Russian, followed by a gunshot.

Mr Stark’s face is ashen. “You get yourself home, kid, I’ll sort this out,” he says, tapping a few buttons until his suit appears from behind a wall.

“Let me come with you,” Peter says.

“No, it’s too dangerous. There are people with guns there.”

“There will always be people with guns!” Peter snaps. “This is America!”

“No. You’re my responsibility, and I can handle this alone.”

“You’re not my responsibility. I can handle things myself. I thought that that episode with the Vulture proved that.”

Tony sighs. “Okay. Fine. But stay out of the way, and do everything I tell you to do. Your suit’s still temperamental, remember?”

Peter grins despite the situation. Hopefully working on a mission together will help them get back into the swing of things.

\---

Tony was almost glad that Peter had to leave early. The silence in the workshop was killing him and he didn’t know how to fix it. Why was he so freaked out? Like Rhodey and Pepper had said, he should be flattered.

When Peter had asked to go on the mission with him, Tony’s first instinct had been to say no. After all, he didn’t want anything to happen to the kid on his watch. But then he realised that he was acting like an overprotective father. The kid knows how to handle himself. Why not let him help out?

He now regrets that decision.

The Russian mobsters must have suspected that Iron Man would turn up, because thirty seconds into the fight, an EMP brought Tony’s suit down, his suit and his means of communication with Peter. As Friday tried to reboot the systems as quickly as possible, Tony could hear Peter’s voice fly around the room – until there was a muffled curse, a gunshot and a cry of pain.

“No!” Tony shouted and shot a repulsor blast from his hand, despite not having use of his sight or aiming system yet. He smelled gas – shit – and quickly commanded Friday to use the emergency oxygen reserves. But he was already feeling dizzy, and the last thing he heard before everything turned to white noise was a terrified whimpering that was unmistakeably Peter’s.

Now Tony is opening his eyes to darkness. His head is throbbing and his left hand is numb.

“Pete?” he calls out softly. His throat hurts.

“Mr Stark? Thank god you’re awake,” Peter whispers back.

Tony slowly sits up and surveys the room they’re in. Concrete on all six sides, with a small, windowless door in one of the walls. A small sliver of cold light shines through a crack underneath the door. There is something huddled in the corner of the room. No, scratch that – _Peter_ is huddled in the corner of the room.

“Kid, are you okay?” Tony shuffles backwards until he’s leaning against the wall next to Peter. Now that he’s closer, he can see bruises and cuts all over Peter’s face and neck.

“I’ve been better,” Peter says, giving a weak smile. “I’ve been awake a couple days already, I think – they don’t have clocks anywhere so I’m not sure – and they’ve… talked to me a bit. I can’t understand much but I think they want something from you.”

A ball of hot anger ignites in Tony’s stomach, and he gently pulls Peter towards him so that the kid’s resting his head on his shoulder. “They always do,” he mutters. “I’ll get us out of here, don’t you worry.” Except Tony is worrying. A couple of days? The tracker he’d put in his neck after Afghanistan should’ve worked by now. Rhodey and a team of highly trained soldiers should’ve barged in here now and sent to hell these monsters who would willingly harm an innocent-

“Mr Stark? Mr Stark, breathe. I got you.” Peter – shit – Peter has his hands on Tony’s shoulders and is frowning at him. “Breathe with me, okay?” He takes one of Tony’s hands and places it on his chest. Tony can feel the kid’s heartbeat. He copies the movements of Peter’s chest until he stops hyperventilating and can think straight again. Peter collapses back against the wall.

“I’m sorry.” Tony’s throat still hurts.

Peter frowns at him. “Don’t be. I had a panic attack when I woke up. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“How did you get so smart?”

“Learned from the best, I guess,” Peter says, shrugging.

Tony hears a door open and shouting in a foreign language before the door to their cell clanks open, flooding the room with artificial light that makes Tony’s head hurt. Three figures enter, all holding guns, and one drags Tony to his feet. Another yells at Peter – fast Russian that Tony can’t quite pick up – and kicks him. If he didn’t have two guns trained on him and another on the kid, Tony would have jumped on the bastard there and then. He merely shouts “Don’t hurt him!” before a coarse bag is thrown over his head and he is led out of the cell.

After what seems like hours of walking, Tony is finally forced onto a seat and the bag is ripped off his head. He is sitting in an identical-looking cell, but this one is lit overhead by a flickering fluorescent strip. The three men are still there, with their guns trained on him, and a fourth man enters the room and sits opposite him.

“We did not expect that you would hand yourself over to us, Tony Stark,” the man says in Russian, “but we were prepared for it. And now you have presented us with a great opportunity. We are very grateful to you.” He pauses. “Do you require a translator?” he asks in heavily accented English.

“No, I do not. And I’m not going to give you anything to be grateful for, either,” Tony replies in Russian.

The man nods, impressed. “We’ll see about that. The child you brought with you? He is yours, I presume.”

“What? No. Well, kind of. I’m mentoring him,” Tony stammers. This little problem is really throwing off his tough-guy act.

“Then I am sure you will have no problem with us performing some tricks on him.”

Tony swallows thickly, remembering the bruises already all over Peter’s face. How many times had they beaten him before Tony woke up? “What do you want from me?”

The man grins. “Weapons.”

Tony’s stomach flips. He feels like he’s going to throw up. He knew exactly what these people would want as soon as he woke up, but actually hearing the words makes him feel sick. “No,” he spits.

The man is silent for a moment. Then he barks some fast orders to the other men who shove the bag back over Tony’s head.

\---

As soon as Mr Stark is led away, two more men enter the cell and stand either side of Peter, guns at the ready. Peter waits in silence, hoping that Mr Stark will come back. It’s strangely comforting to know that Mr Stark is just as scared as he is: at least he knows he’s not being a complete wimp. But he hopes Mr Stark returns in no worse shape than he was before he left. He doesn’t think he could handle being taken hostage alone. At least the mobsters want to keep them alive, for a while at least.

At last the door opens and Mr Stark is forced down opposite Peter before the bag is taken off his head. From what Peter can see in the darkness, nothing has happened to him.

A large bowl of steaming water is placed between them, and Peter hears a sharp intake of breath from Mr Stark. A man who Peter assumes to be the leader says something to him in Russian. Peter swallows and shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t-”

The man yells again and something cold and hard is pressed against the back of his head. _The butt of a gun_ , Peter’s brain supplies. The man glares at Mr Stark, who looks more terrified and hopeless than Peter’s ever seen him. “He wants you to put your hands in the water,” Mr Stark says softly.

“What do they want?” Peter asks him, but Mr Stark merely shakes his head, dropping his gaze to the floor. The gun is shoved against his head again. Peter swallows and dips his shaking hands in the bowl.

The pain is immediately sharp and fills his thoughts, making him cry out. Faintly Peter can hear Mr Stark shouting in a garbled mixture of English and Russian. Peter identifies the words _money_ and _anything_ (that’s said a few times) and _not weapons_ and finally _please_.

After what seems like days of excruciating pain, the man shouts something and the two guards either side of Peter force him backwards, away from the bowl. He can’t feel his hands, and they sit lifelessly in his lap, throbbing. There’s a dull pain in his side as one of the guards kicks him and he goes down, cheek hitting the cold concrete floor.

Things are blurry for a moment until Mr Stark is shaking him gently, trying to get him to sit up. It’s quiet, the men have left and the pain in his hands has reduced to a dull throbbing and pins and needles, like he’s sat on them for half an hour. He sits up slowly. “I’m okay.”

For the first time, he notices that Mr Stark is crying. “I’m so sorry,” he’s muttering. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t do it, I can’t…”

“Hey, it’s okay, I’m okay,” Peter says, leaning his head on Mr Stark’s shoulder. “You don’t want to make weapons any more, I get it.”

Mr Stark sighs and wipes his face dry. “Pete, if they’d asked for anything else, money, sex, my own life, I’d have given it. But…” he swallows, and his next words come out thick with emotion. “I’ve tried so hard to change my image, I can’t go back. I can’t be like my dad or Obie.”

Obadiah Stane, Peter remembers. Mr Stark’s mentor and stand-in father– oh.

 _Oh_.

Something clicks in Peter’s head.

“Mr Stark?”

“Yeah, kid?”

“Did you not want to get too close to me because you were afraid you’d turn out to be like your dad, or Obadiah Stane?”

Mr Stark is silent for a moment. Peter can feel his chest move up and down as he breathes. “Get some sleep, kid,” he says finally.

Peter frowns and sits up so that he can look at Mr Stark. The man’s face is totally neutral, but his eyes refuse to meet Peter’s, and that’s all the answer Peter needs. “Mr Stark, I know you’re different. To your dad and Stane.”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Mr Stark says.

“Well _I_ do, because I think this is something you need to hear! You’re afraid you’re going to turn out like the people who raised you because that’s the only example you had growing up. But the fact that you’re so scared to be like them because you _know_ that what they did to you was wrong shows how different you are. And also the fact that you don’t want to make weapons, and you risked everything to stop making weapons! Your morals are so much better than theirs were!” Peter swallows, and continues more softly. “I was afraid that I’d be putting you in danger if I got too close to you, because that seems to be a trend with people I love. But I think we’ve both been worrying about the wrong things. What matters is that you’re a good person, and I’m lucky to have you as my mentor-slash-somewhat-reluctant-father-figure.”

Mr Stark shakes his head, a small smile on his face. “As your mentor-slash-somewhat-reluctant-father-figure, I thought I was supposed to be the one to give all the pep talks.”

Peter shrugs. “Doesn’t mean you don’t need one once in a while.”

Mr Stark is quiet for a moment before he moves to lean against the wall next to Peter. “I’m sorry,” he says again.

“Don’t be. I heal quickly.” Peter ignores the throbbing pain still in his hands.

“You should get some sleep,” Mr Stark says and pats his thigh.

Peter realises how exhausted he is and accepts the offer, resting his head on Mr Stark’s lap and stretching his legs out. Suddenly there is a sharp stab of pain in his right leg and he winces. “Ow.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Just my leg,” Peter replies, gesturing to the wound there. “From where they shot me in the bank.”

Peter hears Mr Stark curse under his breath. “Okay, as soon as we get out of here, we’re getting that checked out.”

“We are getting out of here, right?” Peter asks. As much as he wants to believe Mr Stark, the chances of them making it out alive are dwindling pretty quickly. Especially since Peter hasn’t been given anything to eat since waking up. Just two glasses of water a day.

“Yeah, kiddo, of course we are. Rhodey should be on his way to blast this place to smithereens as we speak.”

“Okay,” Peter says, but the doubtful feeling stays with him even as he drifts off.

\---

Tony wakes up to coughing. Peter coughing, more specifically. He looks down at where Peter is lying, head on his lap, and he feels his forehead with the back of his hand. He’s burning up. Shit.

“Pete? Hey, kid, wake up.”

Peter’s brow creases as he groans in his sleep. Tony shakes him gently.

“Hey, kiddo, come on.”

Peter’s eyes open slightly, drowsy and unfocused. “Mr Stark? Five more minutes,” he mumbles.

“ _Peter_.”

The kid’s eyes snap open, and Tony realises that that’s the first time he’s called Peter by his proper name.

“Hey, kid, I think you might have a fever.”

Peter frowns and lifts a hand – still slightly scarred, Tony observes with a pang of guilt – to his forehead. “Crap,” Peter mutters. “I think it’s- ow, yeah, it’s the leg.”

Tony swears and tries to get a good look at Peter’s injured leg, but the fact that they’re in almost total darkness and Peter’s head is still in his lap isn’t doing him any favours. But Peter’s probably right: if he has a wounded leg that hasn’t been treated in at least two days, there’s a good chance that it’s infected.

The door opens then and two guards enter, followed by their leader. “Good morning, Mr Stark,” the man says in Russian. “Have you had any second thoughts about our deal?”

“Like hell,” Tony replies, still looking at Peter.

The man tuts. “Too bad. The kid will just have to die, then.”

Tony looks up at that. “What?”

“What?” Peter asks quietly. “What’s he saying?”

“The bullet we shot him with was poisoned,” the man says in English. “It is unlikely that he will make it another day. Unless, of course…”

Tony’s throat has gone dry and he swallows. “Unless what?”

The man grins. “Agree to our terms, and we’ll give you the antidote.”

“Don’t do it, Mr Stark,” Peter says weakly. “I’ll be fine, I can fight it.”

Tony feels sick. He can’t put Peter in any more danger because of his moral compass. He wonders faintly if this was how Cap felt with Barnes. “I’ll do it.”

The man nods. “Good. We shall go to the workshop now. You should have everything you need.”

“No, give us the antidote first,” Tony says.

“Make good on your deal, we will make good on ours. One missile, then we will take care of the child.”

Tony can’t refuse, he knows that. At least maybe he can build his way out of here, like in Afghanistan. “Peter, you stay awake, okay? I’ll be back in a few hours.” He brushes the hair off Peter’s now clammy skin.

“Wait. If you’re going, take me with you,” Peter says.

“No, you’re much better off resting.”

“I can help! Please.”

Tony sighs. To tell the truth, he’d much rather be able to see and talk to Peter, and the kid could help him. Not with making weapons, he’d never get anyone to do that, but perhaps something else…

“Well? Do we have a deal?” the man asks.

Tony looks up. “Take us to your workshop.”

\---

The light in the workshop is too bright, and it gives Peter a headache. But at least he’s useful. Mr Stark has him making a GPS tracking device so that they can communicate with Colonel Rhodes. He had said something about a tracker in his neck not working, which is probably why help hasn’t turned up yet. So this is important. So Peter can’t fuck up.

Mr Stark is across the room, banging some metal into shape. It’s strange how much this reminds Peter of the usual evenings in Mr Stark’s workshop. It’s almost normal, apart from the harsh light and the feeling that he’s going to either throw up or pass out.

“Y’know, on a normal day, you’d be asking me how school went,” Peter says, trying to break the silence.

Mr Stark stops for a moment. “Yeah.”

Okay, so he’s not up for talking right now. Fair enough. Peter starts humming the guitar riff from one of those old rock songs that’s always playing in Mr Stark’s workshop. Mr Stark starts singing the words softly, a little smile on his face. Peter considers it a victory.

It’s a couple of hours later and Peter has the makeshift computer almost done when Mr Stark puts down the blowtorch and takes off the mask. Peter watches him wave at the camera in the corner of the room. “Hey, we’re done! I’ve done your missile!”

A few minutes pass before the door to the workshop is unlocked and a group of men enter, guns aimed at Mr Stark. “Where is the missile?” the leader asks.

Mr Stark hands over the metal device. “Not the best thing I’ve made but good enough in these frankly crude conditions. Shove that in a building and the structural integrity of said building will be reduced to exactly zero. Now, your turn. Antidote, please.”

The man frowns at the missile in his hands. Suddenly he punches Mr Stark and kicks him to the floor. He yells something at him in Russian and kicks him again. After a few more sentences of fast Russian, the leader and his guards leave. Mr Stark struggles to his feet. There’s a cut on his cheek.

“I take it we’re not getting the antidote yet, then,” Peter says.

Mr Stark sighs and leans forward, two hands bracing the tabletop. “They want me to build them a Jericho missile. It’ll take days of work. I don’t even know if we have all the materials I need.” He looks up at Peter. “I’m sorry.”

Peter swallows. “No, we can do this! I’ll help you!”

“No, you need to work on that.” Mr Stark points at the tracking device. “Finish that as soon as possible. I think it’s our only hope.”

Peter nods. “Got it.”

They work in silence for hours, until Peter’s head is really starting to hurt and he can barely keep his eyes open. But the tracking device is almost done. If only he can get his hands to stop shaking enough to put everything together-

“Mr Stark?”

“Yeah, kid?”

Peter swallows. “I need some help.”

Mr Stark walks over to him. “What can I do?”

“I can’t fix these pieces together. It’s too fiddly and my hands…” he can barely feel his hands still. The scarring is almost gone but the pins and needles feeling is still there, and they’re shaking so much now because of lack of food or the poison or whatever.

Mr Stark takes the pieces and screws them into place. He grins. “Good job, kid.” He slides the device back to Peter and gestures to the button on top. “Care to do the honours?”

Peter presses the button and the device beeps softly. He smiles up at Mr Stark. “It works.”

“You sound surprised,” Mr Stark says.

“Can I help you with your missile?” Peter asks.

Mr Stark shakes his head. “I don’t want you making weapons. Besides, thanks to that tracker, we won’t be needing to make any more weapons. Just rest.”

Peter nods. Normally he’d argue with Mr Stark some more, but right now sleep sounds like a really good idea.

\---

Peter won’t wake up.

Tony has been trying for a good few minutes now and the kid – who is normally a very light sleeper – is still unconscious. The wound in his leg is looking… bad. Tony crosses to the camera and waves at it. “Hey! I don’t know if you can hear me, but we need the antidote right now. I promise I’ll finish your missile. I’ll build ten more if you want me to. But the kid’s dying. Please.”

No one comes to the workshop. The silence is even more unbearable that the one back in Tony’s workshop, what seems like an eternity ago. The only thing Tony can do is stare at the tracking device and pray.

He gets back to work.

\---

Everything’s dark.

It’s better than the blinding fluorescent lights of the workshop, but Peter’s still scared because he can’t see anything. He thinks he can hear Mr Stark shouting – at him or at someone else? – the sound echoing like Peter’s in a tunnel, and he tries to call back, but his voice is deadened.

He’s alone.

His head still hurts.

Then, something crashes in the distance and Peter blinks awake. He’s back in the workshop, but the lights are off and the air is dusty. He coughs.

Someone walks towards him. Peter blinks until his eyes focus on a familiar suit of armour. “Hey,” he croaks.

Colonel Rhodes lifts his visor. “Hey, Peter. You ready to go home?”

It takes all of his strength to nod.

“Where’s Tony?”

“I… don’t know. I thought he was here.”

Then someone rushes into the hole where the door once was. Colonel Rhodes turns and raises his hand, but the intruder shouts “No, no, no, Rhodey, it’s me!”

“Tony?”

“No, the president of the United States.”

Peter feels Colonel Rhodes sigh. “Where were you?”

“I finished the missile and they took me to watch them test it. Then a bunch of your soldiers came in and shot everyone, so I ran back here. Not before I grabbed this, though.” He holds up a vial of clear liquid.

“What’s that?” Colonel Rhodes asks.

“Peter got poisoned, and this is the antidote. You need to fly him out of here to the nearest hospital and inject him with this. Go. I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?”

Mr Stark pats Colonel Rhodes’ armoured shoulder. “Yeah, I can handle myself.”

Colonel Rhodes lifts Peter up and turns to go, but Peter catches Mr Stark’s arm. “Hey, Mr Stark?”

“Yeah, Peter?”

Peter smiles faintly. “Thanks.”

Mr Stark nods. “Go.”

They do.

It takes a team of six doctors and two weeks in hospital before Peter’s well enough to go back home. Happy’s there to pick him up, and Aunt May crushes him in a hug as soon as he steps through the door – before grounding him for a month, including visits to Mr Stark’s workshop. But she still lets Ned in when he comes to visit Peter.

“Do you think I’ve screwed everything up?” Peter asks him. “I mean, I was pretty presumptuous in there, right?” He sighs. “And now I can’t even go and apologise. Mr Stark is gonna hate me.”

Ned shakes his head. “Dude, I’m like ninety-eight percent sure that Mr Stark cares about you just as much as, if not more than you care about him, and everything that happened back there will only make you two closer.”

Peter frowns. “What about the other two percent?”

Ned rolls his eyes and throws a pillow at him.

A couple of days later, Peter’s working in his room when he hears a tapping on his window. He looks over and almost has a heart attack when he sees… Mr Stark waving at him through his fourth-floor window?

“Hey kid,” Mr Stark says, his voice slightly muffled through the glass. “Mind if you let me in?” Peter opens the window and Mr Stark half climbs, half falls through it. He’s holding a plastic bag which he hands to Peter from where he’s now lying on the floor. “Here you go. I figured you might need a new one since the one that came back from the mob headquarters wasn’t in the best shape. And I finished rewriting the code in the suit, so you can say goodbye to that bug. Nice job formatting it so clearly, it really helps.”

Peter shrugs, still a little shocked at the fact that Tony Stark just climbed through his window. “Well, that was Ned’s idea actually. He basically taught me how to code.”

Mr Stark rolls his eyes as he stands up. “Can’t you just take a compliment?”

“How did you get up here?” Peter asks.

Tony taps his chest, and something shimmers down his body, coating his feet and turning into red and gold metal boots. “Nanotech,” he says. “I thought I’d give it a whirl. Turned out a lot better than I expected.”

“Wow,” Peter breathes.

Mr Stark sits on his bed. “So, how are you holding up?”

Peter sits next to him. “I’m good. Back to normal. I just gotta catch up on school stuff, y’know.”

Mr Stark nods. “I keep kicking myself over letting you come with me. I don’t know if I’m doing the right think, keeping you around where you can get into trouble.”

“Well, I’m fine now. And even without you, I’m still gonna get into trouble. Might as well get into trouble with adult supervision.”

Mr Stark smiles at him. “You remind me so much of me. But better. I think that’s why I want to protect you, but it’s also why I’d be trapping you if I do.”

“So you’ll let me go on more missions with you?”

“Baby steps,” Mr Stark replies, pulling a face. “Not for a while, at least. I’m taking some time off, have a holiday with Pepper, and you should just focus on school for the moment. God knows you’ve deserved a break. After that, maybe we can see about you being my sidekick.”

Peter grins. He holds out a fist. “So we’re good?”

Mr Stark sighs and returns the fist-bump. “We’re better than good.” He pauses. “ _Son_.”

“ _Oh my god!_ ” Yeah, Peter was never going to live that down.

**Author's Note:**

> Come and say hi on tumblr: @sunshine-soprano


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